I’ve never been drawn to Lakshmi as I am to Durga and Kali. Lakshmi is more widely known as the goddess of abundance, fertility and the ‘ideal wife’. Unlike Durga and Kali who are fierce warriors who step in when the going gets tough, pretty much kicking butt wherever they go, Lakshmi is a bit too demure…or so I thought. I came across this and my thoughts of this archetype have shifted. It’s always nice to have a shift of perspective…I thought I’d share. 🙂
“Lakshmi is the goddess energy who preserves life. In Tantric nature cosmology, she is the nourishing, cooling power of soma, or moon-nectar, that balances the fiery, lightning-like Shakti of Kali and the blazing solar energy of Durga. Soma was the drink of the gods, and supposedly it contained the power to give immortality. It was one of the substances churned up from the Milky Ocean, along with Lakshmi herself. According to Ayurveda, the traditional medical science of India, soma appears in the body as ojas, a vital essence found in bone marrow. Ojas conveys vitality. Sexuality and meditation both draw their power from ojas. It’s connected with rejuvenation (interestingly, the bone marrow is where stem cells are found); it’s also the subtle substance that can cool the body when kundalini Shakti is manifesting in a fiery, Kali-like fashion. Lakshmi’s Shakti is life sustaining both in the physical and subtle realms. She is, subtly speaking, the water of life and the subtle nectar that moistens the heart.
Lakshmi is an ancient goddess. The Vedic singers praised her under her most ancient name, Shri, and sang the ‘Hymn of Shri’ (Shri Sukta) to bring forth whatever is glorious and beautiful in the natural world. Besides being a name of Lakshmi, shri is an abstract noun that signifies all the qualities associated with auspiciousness: good fortune, lovingkindness, material prosperity, physical health, beauty, purity of motive, well-being, authority, energy, vitality, and every kind of radiance.”
—Sally Kempton, Awakening Shakti
PS.
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